Trial Run

This has to be, to my mind at least, the weakest of the novels written by Dick Francis. And, at least in the editions I own, it also has to win the prize for weirdest cover art. The story opens when an amateur jockey and horse trainer named Randall Drew is approached by a member of the royal family w......more

An interesting read with espionage in Moscow in the late 1970s. Randall an aristocrat is asked to go to Moscow in winter to see if a relative of the Prince could come a cropper. Set before the 1980 Olympics we get a feel for Russians living in fear and several attempts on Randall’s life when he gets......more

Has to be read these days as a period piece, set as it is in Russia before the break-up of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, anyone who visitedMoscow at that time will recognise the authenticity of the portrait. The background is equine - but eventing, not racing - and will appeal to those who like a g......more